Paolo Ridolfi’s most recent paintings, exhibited here, can be taken as a poetic balance of From the artist’s affinity with this essential foundation of modern painting derives, therefore,his career, which began in the 1980s. In this balance, however, the artist was not satisfied in another question: how does the accession of Ridolfi to the pictorial planar modernistreevaluating the visible achievements of those works that had opened him new pathways. self-referential space, can support the self-critic reading of his work, since it (by the wayRidolfi went beyond and plunged toward a deep and less obvious layer of her creative , all contemporary production) almost always overflows the strict syntactic context ofprocess: that of semantic articulation of recurrences - chromatic, spatial, thematic and modernity (internal and self-reported) to the semantic field (i.e.: the field of meaning andconceptual-intuitive, etc. -, which in three decades formed a common, procedural and connection of his work with the everyday world)?underlying meaning to its production, from the initial bloom to the present. The answer lies in a painting whose planar meaning does not necessarily result into abstractThe show is therefore a privileged occasion for mapping the founding issues of the poetic space. Rather, these paintings refer (and their titles confirm) to the Concrete, a term whosecore of his work, not only from the self-evaluative standpoint of Paolo (and those who ambiguity can designate both the construction material, the concrete art; to Cobogós andhave been following him critically), as well as that of the curious and interested that usually Tiles, architectural elements inseparable from the wall, which the artist makes migrate todeposit in theoretical-discursive mediations part of their expectations for understanding the screen through his work, making semantic seemingly abstract forms.the contemporary production. In a testimony given recently, Paolo Ridolfi says. For millennia, the walls of temples and palaces were practically the only available pictorialAfter so much time working with figurative images, I want to go back to my first subject: plane (murals). It was only in the Renaissance that the frame (oil on canvas) replacedonly art. In figurative art there are many elements to be interpreted, in Empty Paintings them, winning its absolute hegemony.I introduce works free from these other meanings, I mean to cherish each color, eachbrushstroke, the painting itself, and to empty the canvases of any narrative [...]. It is as if I Ridolfi reminds us of this ancestral link between painting and architecture, as Agnaldowere returning the cornerstone of my works and I yearn to know what will be the reception Farias has noted in catalog of previous shows from Ridolfi at SIM. This chromatic planarof the audience regarding this decision. pattern manifests itself, including, in many of his early photographs, as images, lavishly colored, which were recorded in order to create minimal distances (flattening) betweenHowever, it is nice not to lose sight that the cornerstone of the production of Paolo, as a the foreground and background.contemporary artist, is basically the same that consolidates modern painting. Among the many series of paintings exhibited, all resulting from the poetic balance doneParadoxically it fell onto Maurice Denis, French Symbolist painter (1870-1943), to create the by artist in the last two years, some give continuity to previous experiences. This is not themost important definition of painting for Modernism. She opened up the path that led to the case in his Empty Paintings. New, these paintings are the best expression of the radicalismtriumph of abstract, constructive and concrete arts, a few decades later. Published by the of Ridolfi’s dive.magazine Art et Critique, this definition was part of the Nabis Manifesto, launched in this journalby Denis in August 1890. The title of this series evokes directly Kazimir Malevich’s Black square on white background (1878-1935), considered, in 1913, both by critics and by the public, as a celebration of theA painting – before being a battle horse, a nude woman or any other anecdote – is essentially void.a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order. The Empty Paintings are not, however, simple plans. Formed by cobbles assembled andThe definition of painting proposed by Denis emphasized, with surprising accuracy (both sewn with the same canvas of his paintings, they are painted in monochromatic layers ofconsidered the time and the shyness of her work) the planar content of the canvas which acrylic paint to confirm their pictorial status despite its three-dimensional flaccidity.welcomed the painting, substantive and essential, to the detriment of the narrative ofspecific themes, ever-changing and, therefore, impossible to generate permanent concepts. Even though the remission to the Void attributed to Malevich may not have been intentional, some of the Ridolfi’s Empty Paintings have subtitles extracted from theFor many late nineteenth century artists the canvas was no longer only a scenic background, history of geometric-concrete abstraction. Furthermore, these works are subjected tobut had become the field of formal and chromatic invention. Similarly (even before the interventions evoked by the titles assigned to them by the artist: Rupture, name of thedeliberate return to “the cornerstone” of his work), a considerable part of Paolo Ridolfi’s opening manifesto of São Paulo’s Concrete movement, in 1952, the yellow cobblestone isproduction has always been marked by a concern to enable, through color, the pictorial broken (unwoven); in Homage to Lucio Fontana, the red monochrome is muted. Closer toplane. the themes of art itself Paolo Ridolfi’s Empty Paintings seem to correspond to the artist’s yearning manifest in his testimony, back to the first subject: only art.Espiral II, 2013Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 100 cmSem Título, 2013Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]200 X 100 cm cada/eachConcreto V, 2013Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 150 cmPiscina Vermelha, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 300 cmPiscina Amarela, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 300 cmPiscina Azul, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 300 cmPiscina Vermelha, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 300 cmPiscina Cinza, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 300 cmUniverso, 2011Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]130 X 165 cmSem Título, 2012Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]100 X 150 cmFuracão, 2011Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]238 X 153 cmPOROS E ESTILHAÇOS | Agnaldo Farias

While most painters persist, through scenes, landscapes, portraits or perhaps geometric patterns, which can be combined in various ways, a peculiar mannerthrough various abstract, geometric, gestural or material solutions, in the classic of obtaining the virtual shattering of the plane that contains them, a procedureobjective of making their paintings and frescoes sublimate the walls on which that in our country peaked in the works of Athos Bulcão, a clear reference tothey are fixed, Paolo Ridolfi, by contrast, puts us before shattered planes in the artist.multicolored patterns, an accumulation of small diamonds, circles, squares, andstars of various designs, all so emphatically material that they seem to project As already suggested, most of these new paintings seem to be covered withoutward, overflow and run down the surfaces, making the compositions even squared tiles of beaded edges, arranged in sequences that stand out by virtue ofmore dynamic, turning them into vivid pulsating images. The artist achieves this sharp, incisive and thick lines that compose the junctions between them. Thereresult even as his paintings resemble large building walls, stately and robust, is an illusion and it is focused in the dramatic twisting of these compositions, inlike the ones common in urban sites, containing gullies, bearing the weight of the expression of ever winding concentric circular openings that are, in someviaducts, crossed by pipelines and tunnels through which water flows off and all cases, flagrantly lost. There are also those paintings whose net of coloredsorts of liquids seep and drain unknowably into the city ground. And it remains tiles is modified by a series of bas reliefs and recesses, weaving its surfaceinteresting the idea of superimposing a wall onto another wall. Applying this into regular geometric shapes, gaining features similar to objects and familiarprocedure to other languages would be the equivalent to thinking of a poet elements such as chains, braids, beads, that, due to chromatic similarity, mergewho instead of filling a sheet of paper with words concatenated together, chose with the background, in a manner close to the way fish and butterflies mergeto fill them with loose words, only changing their designs, which would range with stones and logs, and then, as they move, leave us amazed at witnessingfrom the clear to the blurred and indistinct. In other words, as if he preferred to the eruption of something we didn’t know existed before.abandon the meanings that the arrangements between them could provide toinstead present them as a nebula. This also brings us to the idea of a conductor The movement on the surface of Paolo’s paintings suggests the porosity ofwho would replace the music being played for a cacophonous and atonal walls, the possibility that they, instead of blocking our view, the advancementand incidental sound, asking each musician in the orchestra to sound their of our bodies, enunciate the passage to another place, a mysterious zone thatinstruments in random intervals. captures our eyes, making them advance into their guts. Simultaneously to these depth effects surface games happen, the shuffling and the distortion ofThe mere thought of a painting which somehow confirms and overlaps the planar modules, features that lend movement to our sight, making it delight inpresence of the wall on which it is affixed can lead to the assumption of its simple idle course, as someone who lets himself relentlessly contemplateclaustrophobic results, smothering images, even more so if they are very large the hypnotic coming-and-goings of waves, the slow undulation of the flamesworks, as is the case of most of the works presented in this exhibition of Paolo’s of a bonfire, the mismatched beat of a downpour over a metallic roof.recent production, with which he begins his conjoint work with the young SimGaleria. However, it is enough to pause in front of these paintings to feel a The refinement of this peculiar research on the various ways of activating a flatcompletely distinct sensation. While each gives us the impression of something surface goes beyond only “tiling” towards the style of composition populatedsolid, it is a charismatic solidity, guaranteed through strong colors and vivid by short and rhythmic colored lines, organized in multiple hues, in a uniquecontrasts, a resource that provides them with vibrancy and even effervescence. blend of Op Art and Pop Art. With these lines the artist builds vortices, joinsThe painter exalts their surfaces as powerful planes, overflowing, nothing to do them in piles, always achieving irradiations of high color temperature, with anwith a passive element, which is what we commonly associate with walls and ease that is no longer seen in the palette of our artists, even among his 80sblank canvases, a simple bearer for our ideas and actions. Generation colleagues. The result is a space within a space, a pictorial product whose ostensible and contrasting relationship with the real space leads usIf Paolo Ridolfi, as a good painter, manages to divert our attention from the to conclusions about the state of confusion between the everyday and thewall to his painting, and on it, as has been said before, the typical flatness of the marvelous, the ordinary and the unusual. Where are we anyway? Which matterwall reappears in a much more emphatic and expressive solution, far from the are we made of? A painting by Paolo Ridolfi seems to momentarily retreat onhomogeneity and discretion that define domestic spaces and art showrooms. the wall on which it is positioned and then to project itself outward over us,Unlike the smooth texture, without the solution of continuity and the finishing dragging us into it.normally employed, they coherently maintain a relationship with the logic ofornamental murals, particularly those covered with tiles, painted in repeatedDiurno, 2010Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]160 X 105 cmColuna, 2009Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]160 X 105 cmSIM Galeria, Curitiba, 2011[SIM Galeria, Curitiba, Brazil, 2011]Labirinto, 2009Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]111 X 160 cmNoturno, 2009Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]160 X 209 cmComposição III, 2007Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]160 X 345 cmSelf-portrait, 2008Acrílica sobre tela[Acrylic on canvas]150 X 100 cm cada/eachSem Tìtulo, 1986Pintura sobre madeira e plástico[Painting on wood and plastic]70 X 130 X 5 cmPerua, 1989Latex sobre papel sobre tela[Latex on paper and canvas]200 X 100 cmEstamos sempre “decorando” o que está a nossa volta. Se construímos We are always “decorating” that which is around us. if we build a house,uma casa, ornamentamos as janelas e as portas; no banheiro, azulejo- we adorn its windows and doors; the bathroom, decorated from tile toazulejo decorado; os livros, encadernados com vermelho e frisos tile; books, bound in red with golden friezes; flower ornamented dishesdourados; as louças floridas e os copos bordados. A embalagem dos and embroidered cups. the package of yogurt, of chocolate powder, theiogurtes, dos pós achocolatados, o papel da padaria, em tudo tem bread paper, everything always has a ruse, a whim, a bow to embellish.sempre um fricote, uma faixinha pra enfeitar. Já os “quadros” merecem the paintings, on the other hamd, deserve special attention. Besidesatenção especial. Além de representarem o papel de “enfeite oficial”, representing the role of “ official ornamentation”, they get frames andrecebem molduras e mais molduras, tornando-se assim uma espécie de more frames, thus becoming a kind of “super ornamentation”. Golden“superenfeite”. Dourados e prateados, assim são os trabalhos de paolo. and silver, so are paolo’s works. both the gold and the silver workO ouro e a prata trabalham junto com os outros brilhos e retoques na together with the others glosses and touches in the super-enrichmentsupervalorização de cada objeto, esbanjando o apelo visual. O plano é of each object, squandering visual appeal. the plan is to fill the eyes forencher os olhos para uma suave ou por vezes brusca sedução. a smooth or sometimes sudden seduction.